Month: May 2018

MILES TO GO BEFORE WE SLEEP

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? May 21, 2018

Dr. Carol Johnston is the professor from South Dakota whose recent book about beavers shaping the land has been making waves, her study on the history of continuously maintained beaver dams made waves before that. She has single=handedly made a huge impact on the way folks respond to beaver in her state.

Not all folks though. apparently.

Battling South Dakota’s beaver problems

Becker is wildlife damage specialist for the South Dakota Game Fish & Parks Department. His job, otherwise known as “state trapper,” involves ridding nuisance animals like coyotes and beavers for South Dakota landowners.

Yes, beavers — those little semi-aquatic rodents that can cause “a world of headaches” — are a big problem here.…

“They’re an amazing animal, but they get themselves in a lot of trouble,” said Becker, who’s worked for GF&P for just shy of a decade.

“I don’t think most people give beavers a second thought until they go into their backyard and see $150 to $200 trees chewed up,” said Becker, whose office is based in Mitchell. “Then they’re quick to find out who they need to get ahold of to get rid of these things.”

In the spring, beaver and coyote assistance calls are split pretty evenly for Becker, he said. Beavers are a problem everywhere in South Dakota, but there are more issues in the southeastern part of the state.

The article talks about how beavers are problematic because they chop down trees and block culverts (you don’t say!) and shows a short film of Becker live trapping beaver and then (because its South Dakota) shooting it in the head. Because you know, not enough trapping these days has lead to a population boom because beavers have no more predators – we should know because we shot them already.

(Lord knows folks couldn’t actually wrap the friggin trees or anything. Because that would just be crazy.)

I’ve reviewed so many good stories about beavers in the past month this was a little shocking to me. But now I think it’s good. We need a reminder that the war isn’t over and beavers still face a massive challenge on almost every front. Dr, Johnson’s research made it into Ben’s upcoming book but her message has a long way to go to finish educating the Dakotas about why beavers matter.

Get to work, Carol.

Let’s have some good news to cleanse the palate. This blogger. a Zoology Student, reviewed Chris Johnson’s recent presentation on the new beavers in Cornwall with some good things to say.

The Beaver-Saving County

Beavers were once a native species to the UK, though they became extinct 400 years ago due to hunting. In recent years however, there has been a big desire to bring back this much-loved species so we can call them a native UK species once again!

On February 9th 2018, Chris Jones, an innovative farmer from the Woodland Valley Farm Trust in Cornwall, came to Bangor University to inform us of the amazing (and highly effective!) beaver conservation work he is doing down in Cornwall!

After 32 weeks, the programme had proven to be of great significance:

4 large dams had been constructed
2 further ponds had been created
The stream had been divided into 2 separate brooks
The female was pregnant! (unconfirmed but believed to be true)

Chris explained that there are numerous benefits that can be taken from this programme if fully successful, in particular:

Increased hope that the beaver can be adopted legally as a native species
Contribute towards evidence supporting the beaver as an important ‘gate-way’ and ‘keystone’ wetland species
Dam building will help prevent flooding in the local village of Ladock and surrounding wildlife habitats
Reversal of environmental damage to the Cornish Countryside
Restoration of the stream’s ecological health, filtering the water and essentially trapping away soil sediment and pollutants.

Chris Jones was a highly informative, entertaining and enticing presenter and his Q&A session at the end of the talk offered further study information and possible negative impacts of the project.

I believe Chris and his hard-working beavers made at least one convert! Hurray! There’s still plenty of work to do, and I’m thinking this particular zoology student will help.

I came across this yesterday by accident but it has a nice history of what happened to beavers in England and what they’re working to fix.

SIMPLE BEAVER MESSAGING INC.

heidi08 Beavers May 22, 2018

It’s fortunate that the new park where we’re having the festival is nearby. We often like to walk in it so I can think to myself “What will go where”. It’s not as silly as it sounds, because we now have 52 exhibitors signed up and I have to be aware of such things. Just look at our current map. (Double click to zoom in). The stars indicate participating exhibits in the sticker project for children.

Obviously there’s a lot going on in every corner of the acre park, And a ring of benches in the center with plenty of space to sit and watch Amy create the chalk mural or listen to our great music. The benches are nicely made wrought iron with a little space for memorial plaques that have as yet been unclaimed by the good people of Martinez. There are nine of them that are undedicated. For the first time this week I really looked at them and thought HEY that’s a great empty space that should be filled with information.

So I designed these inserts to fit on temporary cardboard in the nine slots on the day. Some day they will all be dedicated to someone’s grandpa or beloved but on June 30th they going to be all about beaver benefits.

As simple messaging goes,I like them very much. What do you think?

BEAVER STORIES THAT MAKE US SMILE

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? May 19, 2018

Never mind that old silly royal wedding, there’s fresh new beaver romances to pay attention to. Tell me that this story doesn’t have all the passion, intrigue and challenge of any new couple starting out! As a bonus we get to see Greg Lewallen on camera who was my editor on the restoration guidebook but I never beheld before. Be patient the video takes a while to load but it’s worth the wait.

Beaver pair reintroduced into the wild after

developing fondness during rehabilitation

There now. Don’t you feel better? I thought it was funny how they emphasize that the male would be finding them a burrow as soon as possible. Such interesting projection! Our stalwart female built all the lodges herself and never had a stitch of help! I’m quite sure they have zero data for their assertion that it’s the males job to find them a nice place to live. But I wish those kids all the luck in the world on their new life!

Yesterday the universe had so much fun with me! Comcast decided to migrate my email to a new platform so I had zero email all day and spent hours on the phone trying to get it repaired. As luck would have it it was the same day Steve Dunsky and Sarah Koenisberg were finishing up the details on whether there’s going to be a premier of her Beaver Believer film two days before the festival at the Empress Theater in Vallejo. So I actually don’t know. But I’m still hopeful. I will keep you posted.

My email is fixed now anyway, so yeah! This story made me smile despite my troubles. There but for the grace of god go I.

Woman charged over sabotaged beaver traps at Komoka park

Holly Pepper was getting ready to take her dog for walk when she saw a conservation officer approaching her house.

Pepper immediately knew why the official from the Ministry of Natural Resources was paying a visit to her London home on May 10. Almost a month earlier, Pepper was walking her dog Cash, a seven-year-old labrador mix, through the

Holly Pepper holds her ticket for interference with lawful trapping after she had set off the beaver traps she found in Komoka Provincial Park west of London. Mike Hensen/The London Free Press

trails at Komoka Park when she saw a dead muskrat in a metal beaver trap in one of the park’s ponds.

Pepper started looking around the water and found four more of the deadly traps.

But it was the ministry that had hired a contractor to set a dozen of the traps around the ponds – the first time it has been done at sprawling park west of London – to kill beavers blamed for damming the area, causing high water levels that affected the installation of a municipal sewage and drainage system.

After confessing to the conservation officer about her role in trashing the traps, Pepper was issued a ticket for interfering with lawful trapping, an offence under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act.

Seven beavers were killed during the trapping that ran from February until the end of April, a ministry spokesperson said.

No, silly, it wasn’t some free-lance sicko who set those traps Holly, it was a hired official sicko who was actually paid with your hard-earned tax dollars. There now, don’t you feel better?

Poor Holly, I just want you to know if you decide to fight this Worth A Dam has your back. If you need protestors at your trial we’ll put out some alerts. And if it turns out you go all the way to the big house don’t worry – we’ll send you a beaver cake with a file in it.

FRUSTRATING AND FASCINATING

heidi08 Environmental May 18, 2018

The largest rodent in North America, the beaver is nothing if not a force of nature, a critter constantly at work and brilliantly adapted for its aquatic environment. With orange teeth, a flat, paddle-shaped tail and an insatiable desire for cutting trees and building dams, beavers are, as one biologist put it, equally fascinating and frustrating. An old saying: A beaver in the right place is an ideal conservationist; a beaver in the wrong place is a nuisance.

So begins a glossy new article in the Star Tribune which is in equal parts a review of Ben’s book and a review of beavers themselves. “You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll tear your hair” – kind of thing.

Appreciating the place of the beaver, which fascinates and frustrates

“Beavers are the most important natural resource in our country’s history, and I don’t think that’s well-known or appreciated enough,” said Ben Goldfarb, author of the book “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.”

“Beavers are intimately intertwined with American history and most important historical events before the Civil War were motivated to secure more land to trap beavers. So we have the Fur Trade as this great historic event, and we also have this great ecological event that is still playing out today. How do we balance the enormous good beavers do environmentally with some of the problems they cause?”

*I like this photo a lot, but they don’t give anyone credit so I can’t either*

You can just tell the author of this article is bracing himself for all the nice things he has to say about beavers. Either it’s against his grain or he is worried it will be against the readers grain. Either way I’m sure there are definitely grains involved.

Steve Windels is a wildlife biologist at Voyageurs National Park, headquartered in International Falls. He is one of several scientists who have conducted beaver research at the 218,000-acre park. Roughly 50 research papers have been produced since research began there in 1983. Windels said the cumulative research shows Voyageurs might contain the highest density of beavers in the United States.

“They’re a keystone species … and their removal can result in a cascade of changes for other species in the system,” Windels said.

Indeed, Windels said beaver research at the park suggests that at least 124 bird species, mammals, reptiles and amphibians use “beaver-created wetlands,” — or about 38 percent of the park’s inhabitants.

Did you get that? 38% depend on beaver! And the other 62 percent just drink the water. Pay attention, here comes the money shot.

Beaver coexistence

Goldfarb said the federal government in 2017 killed 23,646 “problem” beavers. He said beavers are blamed for far too many problems and would like to see more nonlethal strategies for dealing with so-called nuisance beavers. “If I learned one thing from researching my book, it can be done,” he said. “Beavers don’t have a lot advocates, but they furnish us with numerous ecosystem services that support a vast menagerie. Do some beavers cause such problems that they need to be dealt with? Yes. But I think we’ve gone overboard.”

Well said Ben. It’s true that beavers don’t have a lot of advocates, but the ones they DO have are AWESOME. Coming soon to a book store near you.

“NATURE ALWAYS GIVES YOU ONE MORE BEAVER THAN YOU CAN HANDLE”

heidi08 Urban beavers May 17, 2018

Their are urban beaver woes showing up all across the hemisphere – reminding city planners everywhere that just because they put in sewer pipes and high rises, it doesn’t mean that nature has been tamed.

Let’s start in Caledon Ontario which is just a north of Ohio.

Dam it! Busy beavers build lodge in Caledon storm pond

Louis Liu was walking near the storm water management pond in Southfields Village when he spotted three beavers hard at work.

“It seems they are building a lodge in the middle of the pond, they need all the trees around it to be utilized,” he said.

Around the pond, which is located on the northwest corner of Kennedy Road and Abbotside Way, Liu noticed damage to the trees.

Parm Chohan, from the Town of Caledon said residents can report any dams or beaver activity either through:

I admit from this vague article I cannot discern what exactly the beaver was building, a dam or a lodge – or really what the problem is – but it doesn’t really matter. That photo appeals to me. It’s just so urban. That beaver is doing his job and in a hurray and just doesn’t care what anyone thinks about it and whether people are watching, It should be an inspiration to people everywhere.

Onto Prince Edward Island where beavers have built a dam in a culvert which is NOT a surprise. The people don’t want their yard flooded and think beavers bring mosquitoes which is not a surprise either. What IS a surprise is that they brought in a watershed trust to fix the problem and they actually WANT to keep beavers on the land. They are installing a pipe to control the problem instead of trapping them.

That’s a first for P.E.I.

Beavers busy in Bedeque Bay watershed

A homeowner in Freetown, P.E.I., says a beaver dam recently blocked the Dunk River behind his property, causing water to rise in his back yard — and staff at the local watershed organization say he isn’t alone.

“Over the past three years, we’ve noticed a major uptick in beaver activity,” said Chris Newell with the Bedeque Bay Environmental Management Association.

Barlow’s rural home backs onto a tributary of the Dunk River. The normally placid stream passes through a steel culvert under the road but late Tuesday, the inlet of the culvert was completely submerged and blocked with water continuing to rise — and pooling in Barlow’s back yard.

“We’ve targeted a lot of beaver dams for this year to remove,” said Newell, “But we’re actually looking for some land owners that don’t want the beaver completely gone.”

Newell said watershed staff planned to install a device to help stop flooding, while allowing beavers to keep their dams. It’s basically a long pipe that runs under the dam, and siphons off just enough water to the beaver pond at a reasonable level.

“They’re called ‘beaver bafflers’ or ‘beaver deceivers’,” explained Newell.

“We’re going to take it slow, make sure we’re not doing damage — but we’re eager to get out there and do some.”

Hurray Hurray! Never mind that you obviously don’t know what they’re called yet or the history – you’ll learn, The mere fact that PEI is actually installing one is pretty epic. Notoriously beaver-intolerant a senior official once got into an long argument with our own Rickipedia over whether they were even native to the island. Their many trapping stories prompted one of my favorite and earliest graphics, which I will cheerfully retire as we learn that there are folk installing flow devices on the island!

Congratulations Bedeque Bay Environmental Management Association. We wish you luck and can get you helpful advice from experts if things go wrong!

Oh and back to Maine where they brought in those huge ‘shark cages’ to discourage their pesky beavers. Apparently the fact that the article mentioned the trust might want some of the beavers trapped hasn’t gone over so well.

Cumberland Land Trust does not support using beaver traps

A May 10-16 article about beaver issues in town inaccurately reflects the Cumberland Land Trust’s experience in working with the beavers. The Land Trust, which was not contacted for the story, wants to correct two points:

1. The two “beaver deceivers” we placed one year ago are working as designed. They require routine oversight to make sure they are functioning. Due to this year’s snow melt and spring rains we have determined additional larger diameter piping is required to handle the increase in seasonal water levels.

2. The Cumberland Land Trust does not support the trapping of beavers since state law requires trapped beavers to be euthanized.

Randy Tuomisto president of the Cumberland Land Trust.

Ohhh ho ho! Take that beaver nay-sayers everywhere! I got an email yesterday from a wildlife-saving friend about the cage article so I guess that must have raised some alarms. I’m always happy when LAND TRUSTs behave in a way that benefits actual nature instead of the way they assume nature should be. Hurray for Cumberland Trust and installing a functioning beaver deceiver.

Skip Lisle was out there last year, so you’ve learned from the best.